Union in the North Woods : the Timber Strikes of 1937 / Stacy Mitchell

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UnionUnion inin thethe NorthNorth W STACY MITCHELL

Timber workers eating lunch in Carlton County, about 1937

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WoodsWoods THE TIMBER STRIKES OF 1937

e are the Minnesota Lumberjacks . . . the most “W exploited group of workers in the state,” wrote Fred Lequier of the newly formed Minnesota Timber Workers Union in January 1937. “The lumber barons of the Northwest have dealt with us as ruthlessly as they laid waste our great natural resource, the Minnesota forests. Never receiving a living wage from the lumber industry, never earning enough to maintain a home and raise a family which is the right of every man . . . neglected and unorganized, [we] have been forced to migrate, ‘following the woods’ in abject pauperism, homeless and disin- herited.” Concluding his appeal for aid in the Minneapolis Labor Review, he announced a surprising turn of events: “Unable to endure these conditions any longer, we have gone out on strike.” 1 In an industry difﬁcult to organize and long ignored by the mainstream labor movement, Minnesota’s timber workers launched two successful strikes in 1937. Despite daunting circumstances, they achieved union recognition for the ﬁrst time in their history as well as unprecedented improvements in wages and living conditions. Their success arose, in part, from a collective resolve to gain some control over the conditions of their lives. As one timber

Stacy Mitchell is a researcher for a nonproﬁt public policy organization. She studied history at Macalester College in St. Paul.

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worker put it, “We lumberjacks are not going to let more than half of the forest industry’s production in them break our union. . . . It’s better to die than to live the years after 1932.6 like we’ve been living for all these years.” In addition, The intense logging that had reduced the north the jacks’ struggle was strengthened by a growing, mili- woods to barren, stump-filled cutover or meager tant national movement of unskilled workers and by second-growth forest precluded a sustainable lumber- the election in Minnesota of Farmer-Labor Party politi- ing economy. Poverty and seasonal unemployment cians sympathetic to their plight.2 made timber workers especially vulnerable to poor Most significantly, the timber workers’ success was working conditions and low pay. As deforestation built on solidarity with other financially impoverished pushed lumbering onto increasingly marginal lands, people in northern Minnesota. Lumber companies employers developed new piece-rate wage systems and owning vast tracts of the north woods had exerted other practices to keep costs down while logging poor- enormous power over the region’s development, and er strips of timber. after exhausting the forest and reaping its profits, they In the 1930s the major lumber companies oper- were rapidly moving their large operations to the ating in Minnesota’s north woods included General Pacific Northwest. As a result, northern Minnesota’s Logging, a Weyerhaeuser enterprise; International economy collapsed, prompting the National Resources Lumber, later International Paper; North Star, a divi- Committee in 1939 to describe the region as “one of sion of Kimberly-Clark; and the Minnesota and Ontario the Nation’s most critical social and economic prob- Paper Company, the largest corporation in the state. lems.”3 In particular, farmers, who had purchased While these companies continued to operate some “cutover” land from lumber companies but discovered large, traditional camps employing hundreds of men that the soil produced only meager crops, identified in one location, deforestation had led to an increased the timber workers’ struggle as their own and played a reliance on subcontractors, called “jobbers,” who man- decisive role in its success. aged small logging operations on land leased from timber companies or from the U.S. Forest Service.7 Large camps employed people in a variety of jobs, Since lumbering began in northern Minnesota in the though most workers were engaged in felling trees and 1880s, timber workers had labored long hours for little sawing logs. Loaders oversaw the piling of logs onto pay in an industry that posed significant threats to life horse-drawn sleighs, steam-powered caterpillar haulers, and limb.4 Working the woods was a winter occupation or railroad cars. Engineers operated pulley-and-cable that required iced sled tracks for pulling logs out of the systems powered by horses or steam to load the logs. forest to river banks and railroads. In summer, woods Teamsters drove horses; railroad track layers and main- workers, who were often immigrants, moved on to farm tenance men kept the operations moving; engineers fields and mines for more seasonal employment in drove trains; and in the spring, river drivers kept logs marginal jobs. floating downstream, although by the 1930s river drives During its heyday just after the turn of the century, were rapidly becoming obsolete. Lumber camps also the industry employed 15,886 woods workers in 329 employed support workers such as blacksmiths, carpen- camps in St. Louis, Itasca, and Beltrami Counties alone ters, saw filers or sharpeners, and cooks. and probably more than 20,000 in the state as a whole. Although $60 a month, less $1 a day for board, was Economic collapse was well underway by the early the standard woods-worker’s wage for a 60- to 70-hour 1920s, and during the 1930s the number employed week in the 1930s, few workers actually received this declined from some 7,000 to 4,000. Lumber produc- sum. According to Ilmar Koivunen, a Finnish logger tion in 1929 was only 15 percent of 1899 levels, and from the Mesabi Range and union organizer, “If you three years later production had dropped to 2.6 per- made the slightest delay . . . they fired you. There was cent of the peak level.5 always one or two men waiting to take your place, wait- The ancient white pines that had once dominated ing in line to get your job.” All new hires had to be the industry, frequently growing more than a hundred made through employment agencies, which split the feet tall, three or more feet in diameter, and producing fees paid by workers with company foremen. Workers strong, clear lumber, had virtually disappeared. In their were laid off every few weeks when employment sharks place grew smaller, less useful varieties—aspen, birch, sent in new crews. Koivunen recalled, “Any time they’d and poplar. Though these trees made poor lumber, feel that a man’s earnings went a little beyond what he they could be processed for paper, railroad ties, and should have in his pocket, they’d fire him. He’d have other manufactured wood products that accounted for to go into town on company transportation and [they

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Load of large ﬁrst-growth logs, Carlton County, 1899

would] charge him an exorbitant amount and then $5.43. William Torri (Torrey) worked every day from when he’d get to town they’d hire him back.”8 October 26 to December 6, 1936, including part time In the 1930s only a minority of workers were paid a on Sundays, and after purchasing some clothes in the standard monthly wage, as the companies increasingly company store, found he owed his employer 88 cents.10 used a piece-rate system to lower their costs. Piece Timber workers had remained outside the country’s workers, who rented their tools and horses from the mainstream labor movement. Skilled craft unions company, were assigned strips of land. They also paid belonging to the American Federation of Labor (AFL) $1 a day for board, forcing some to work long hours had little interest in organizing unskilled immigrants. scavenging the last sticks of timber just to break even. In 1917 the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a According to logger and early union organizer Martin union of the country’s most exploited workers, had Kuusisto, company scalers routinely cheated piece launched an extensive timber strike in northern Min- workers when measuring how much wood they had cut.9 nesota, but Wobblies, as they were known, were beaten, “The result,” recalled Kuusisto, “was a lot of men jailed, blacklisted, and exiled by a powerful coalition of were working for nothing.” Testimony taken in January company and state police. Throughout the 1920s and 1937 brought out that Archie Peters, a piece worker at early 1930s Minnesota’s timber workers remained with- Kimberly-Clark’s North Star Camp #17, had been out a union. In the fall of 1935, timber workers insti- forced to cut a four-foot-wide road through the woods gated a wildcat strike in the camps of the Minnesota to get his lumber out. He was not paid for this time, and Ontario Paper Company around Gheen in St. Louis and at the end of 13 days’ work he had made only County. Although the strike failed and many were

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a part-Native American organizer with the unemployed movement in Bemidji.12 Many of these activists were affiliated with the Communist Party. During the early years of the Great Depression, when economic hard times and the AFL’s narrow focus on skilled workers had reduced the ranks of the mainstream labor movement, Communists remained aggressive, militant, and persistent in their efforts to mobilize the poor. Throughout the early 1930s, they organized unemployed and relief move- ments in logging and mill towns across the country. Meanwhile, the AFL, according to Kuusisto, “didn’t give a darn” about the 1935 wildcat strike in the north woods and “couldn’t care less about the unorganized, unskilled workers.”13 Throughout the fall of 1936, union activists hoping to build up Local 2776 discussed grievances with workers and developed a core of support in a handful of northern Minnesota’s larger camps operated by Gen- eral Logging and International Lumber. In December they presented these companies with a list of demands, including a minimum wage of $4 a day for eight hours Minnesota’s cutover, once-forested land stripped of all of work, no more than $1 a day for board, pay twice salable timber monthly in U.S. currency rather than “time checks” that could be cashed only for a fee, and, finally, recognition of the union. The jacks also demanded improvements in camp sanitation, “shower baths and wash blacklisted, workers continued to spread the message houses with tubs in all camps,” and single, instead of of unionism in the woods and sought a charter from shared, bunks.14 the AFL. Unwilling to take an active role, the AFL Still loosely organized and representing only a nevertheless granted the jacks a charter to form Local portion of the thousands of woods workers scattered 2776 of the Timber Workers Union, a subsidiary of the throughout northern Minnesota, the budding union United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, under found that its demands were met with little more than which timber workers in the Pacific Northwest had ridicule by company officials. Then, on January 4, recently unionized.11 1937, Local 2776 resolved to strike. Hundreds of timber workers walked off the job each day, as word of the strike spread like wildfire from camp to camp. Jacks Leading Minnesota’s organizing drive were militant around Gheen near Lake Vermilion and in Superior left-wing activists, many of whom were first- or second- National Forest just north of Two Harbors were the first generation immigrants with strong family traditions of to quit, and within two days strikers numbered 2,500. socialism and union participation. Ilmar Koivunen, By the end of the first week, the union’s numbers had whose father had been blacklisted during miners’ swelled to more than 4,000. Heartened union represen- struggles on the Iron Range, was a member of the tatives declared the strike statewide, and, much to the Communist Party and had earlier organized workers at surprise of lumber-company officials, logging ceased a Minnesota Civilian Conservation Corps camp. In his throughout northern Minnesota.15 22 months with the CCC, he had led seven strikes cul- minating in the formation of a workers committee, per- haps the only one of its kind in the country, that nego- At first workers conducted a sit-down strike, tiated wages and conditions with CCC officials. Other remaining in camp but refusing to work. As camp sup- organizers included long-time IWW members Joe Liss plies ran short and it became apparent that the strike and Oscar Rissberg, Duluth-born radical Irene Paull, was spreading statewide, however, strikers headed for her husband, attorney Henry Paull, and Fred Lequier, the nearest towns—International Falls, Duluth, Gheen,

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Ely, Cloquet, and Virginia. To maintain cohesion and society was dramatic. Labor writer Irene Paull later communication, the union employed eight “squad recalled, “I remember the letters we used to get at cars” to relay information and reach isolated timber Midwest Labor. They used to write that the union gave camps still unaware of the strike. The union also relied them a sense of personal dignity.”20 Minnesota’s heavily on existing ethnic networks and community timbermen were also becoming part of a national organizations that provided both material and moral movement of unskilled laborers. Extensive, industry- support. Finns were well represented among northern wide drives by unions affiliated with the Congress of Minnesota’s jacks, and Finnish social halls served as Industrial Organizations (CIO) were organizing un- union meeting places and shelters for striking workers. precedented numbers, especially in the auto and steel Working-class newspapers such as Hibbing’s St. Louis industries. County Independent and the Finnish paper Työmies, The working class was also making significant which published a special English-language section progress politically. In Minnesota the election of throughout the strike, spread information among Farmer-Labor politicians, particularly Governor Elmer workers in scattered lumber towns.16 A. Benson, proved invaluable. Local 2776 president Providing food and shelter in the dead of winter for Lequier boldly wrote to Benson just two days after the the strikers, who often had no place to call home but strike began: “We ask you to put pressure on the author- the camps they had now abandoned, presented a con- ities for relief for the strikers, we also ask you to have an tinuing struggle for the union. In Duluth strikers occu- investigation to offset any strike breaking.” Benson in pied an abandoned hotel, and in towns across north- turn supported the strike and wired back: “If any ern Minnesota Local 2776’s strike committee set up attempt is made at strike breaking kindly advise me relief kitchens that fed more than 1,200 men in and I will have representative of State Industrial the first few days of the strike. Desperately short Commission make a personal investigation of the of resources, the union immediately appealed situation.”21 for state aid. On January 8, 1937, a delegation of 200 timber workers led by executive committee member Joe Liss called on the St. Louis County relief administrator to demand food for the strikers. They were told that they could apply for relief, but the transient nature of logging meant that many did not meet the county’s residency requirement.17 On January 8 and 9, union leaders also met with representatives of Kimberly-Clark, operators of the North Star camps, but made little progress toward an agreement. No other companies approached the union to negotiate a settlement. On January 12, Minnesota strikers were joined by lumberjacks in Ontario, Canada, when 2,000 employees of Shevlin-Clarke Company and J. A. Mathieu, Ltd., walked off the job. Although organized under their own union, the Canadian jacks demanded similar improvements in wages and conditions.18 In an effort to prevent trucks from transporting already cut logs to processing facilities and railroad Benson also advised Lequier depots, the union organized picket lines on roads lead- that state relief measures would be ing into Duluth and other towns. When the pickets available for strikers. In another occasionally resorted to dumping truckloads of wood unprecedented move, he ordered the Minnesota in order to maintain the blockade, Duluth’s police National Guard and the state highway patrol to assist chief issued an order prohibiting strikers from stop- strikers, unlike 20 years earlier when the guard had ping trucks within the city limits.19 been used to crush the IWW-led lumber strike. In The strike’s effect on workers who had long been Duluth the armory was opened to homeless workers, poor, often homeless, and kept on the margins of and the National Guard helped distribute blankets and

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other supplies. As prom- spread poverty generated ised, the state’s Emergency by the rapid clearing of Relief Administration pro- the north woods had vided food, shelter, and caused many residents to medical care in Gheen, Ely, turn against lumber com- Virginia, Duluth, and Inter- panies and to identify national Falls. With union with the timber workers. resources drained in the As the St. Louis County first few days of the strike, Independent put it, lumber this assistance proved vital.22 companies used workers Governor Benson also “as ruthlessly as they have quickly appointed a com- exploited one of Minne- mittee to investigate camp sota’s most important nat- conditions. This, according ural resources.”26 to Lequier, “helped us a For decades timber great deal to bring our companies had success- cause into the open and put Worker solidarity cartoon from the Timber Worker fully promoted the pressure on the operators cutover as ideal farmland. for a quick settlement.” By the turn of the centu- Testifying before the committee, woods workers ry, lumbermen had established colonization companies brought to light their living conditions. Most camps that published booster literature about the advantages were crowded, forcing workers to sleep two to a bunk. of buying acreage in northern Minnesota and conduct- Blankets and bedding were infested with lice, and most ed land sales. This not only assisted the industry in dis- camps had no washing facilities for the men or their posing of now useless land but altered perceptions of clothing. Bunkhouses were poorly ventilated and insu- logging by reassuring people that removing the forest lated, kitchens were unsanitary, and the food was often would make northern Minnesota into a robust agricul- poor in quality. Workers also complained bitterly of tural region. With most farmland in southern Minne- being forced to buy supplies from camp stores that sota already settled, the cutover was sold to native-born charged double the going rate.23 farmers who could not afford better land elsewhere Benson’s strong stand on behalf of the timber work- and to recent immigrants, including Finns and other ers prevented local officials, who had played a central eastern Europeans, who knew little about Minnesota’s role in crushing the IWW two decades earlier, from growing conditions.27 interfering with pickets and breaking the strike’s As it turned out, earning a profit from a northern momentum. Union organizer Koivunen later main- Minnesota farm was nearly impossible. Clearing stumps tained, “If it hadn’t been for Benson stopping the state and rocks cost farmers hundreds of hours of labor and police and the influence he had as governor, stopping limited the amount that could be planted in a given the county sheriffs’ office and these different police year. Secondly, the sandy, acidic soils of the pine forest departments from harassing the pickets and the strik- never produced more than meager food crops. The ers, why, it would have been a difficult struggle.”24 short growing season and distance from large markets Benson’s actions on behalf of the timber workers added problems. As the numbers of lumber workers came as quite a shock to many strikers, particularly to declined, so did the modest nearby markets for pro- members of the IWW, who believed that political action duce. Between 1924 and 1935, the average yearly farm was useless in working-class struggles. To Benson, Irene income in the 14 northeastern timber counties was Paull wrote: “All through the timber strike the workers $335, compared to a state average of $1,371, or four could scarcely believe it possible that for once in their times as much. Between 1925 and 1930, 12 percent of experience a Governor had not turned tear gas and the region’s farms failed, with St. Louis County losing a guns against them. . . . It should be a thrill to you to third of its farms.28 know that because of you they have taken hope for the Low farm income meant that many families could first time in their lives in ‘political action.’”25 not pay property taxes and were forced to abandon Throughout northern Minnesota, Farmer-Labor their land. By 1931 the northeastern counties were bur- clubs sent letters and telegrams to Benson commend- dened with almost 7 million tax-delinquent acres, or 48 ing his active participation in the strike. The wide- percent of the taxable land, at a time when the state-

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wide average was only 16 percent. Among those who Minnesota’s timber workers had won union recogni- were able to retain their farms, few could support their tion and the right to collective bargaining as Local families through agriculture alone. In 1934 some 63 2776 of the Timber Workers Union. Although the con- percent of northern Minnesota’s farmers required tract did not meet all of the workers’ demands, the additional income, and many reluctantly turned to Duluth News Tribune described the strikers as being woods work. Intimately aware of the conditions suf- “pretty well pleased.” The contract increased wages and fered by timber workers and the painful contraction of piece rates by 10 to 18 percent, instituted the eight- the economy, many northern farmers offered material hour day with time-and-a-half for overtime and double and moral support to the striking lumberjacks.29 time for legal holidays, and gave seniority in hiring and layoffs. The agreement also established a closed shop (meaning timber workers had to join the union), a With demonstrations of extensive public support for committee to negotiate workers’ grievances with man- the strikers, a governor determined to protect workers’ agement, and improvements in camp conditions to be rights, and lumber needing to be skidded out of the enforced by the state’s industrial commission. Large woods before the first snow melt halted operations for lumber companies including Kimberly-Clark, the season, the timber industry decided to negotiate an International Lumber, and General Logging, as well as end to the strike. On January 21 a many small operators, signed the state committee successfully agreement, and the strikers went arranged meetings in Duluth with back to work on February 1, 1937.32 Governor Elmer A. Benson, both sides and within two days Buoyed by the successful strike, reached an agreement granting tim- a strong supporter of the workers elected job stewards in ber workers most of their demands. timber-worker strikes every camp, and the union hired It was soon ratified by a vote of full-time agents to maintain com- union members. The contract pro- munication between camps and vided for an eight-hour day, union union leaders. The union also recognition, increases in piece rates, launched its own newspaper, The and improvements in camp sanita- Timber Worker, later renamed Mid- tion, to be overseen by the state west Labor, with Sam Davis, an ex- industrial commission. Rather than perienced labor reporter from the $4 per day, workers settled for $70 Minneapolis Building Laborers per month with the daily cost of Local 563, as editor. His cousin board not to exceed $1. On the Irene Paull contributed a regular same day, workers in Ontario settled column under the name Calamity their strike, winning increased wages Jane, as she was known among the and union recognition.30 lumberjacks, and took over as edi- The truce in Minnesota, how- tor in 1938. While Työmies and sev- ever, was brief. Three days later eral issues of the independently workers went back on strike, con- published Lumberjack had provided tending that timber companies valuable assistance during the failed to abide by the terms of the strike, the union believed that its agreement. Bargaining began anew, own, ongoing publication was nec- although lumber officials com- essary to sustain cohesion among plained that they wanted to negoti- the remote timber camps. Early ate with a representative of the AFL issues also served as an important instead of local union leaders. education tool for workers new to Finally, on January 29, the two sides unions, with articles covering such reached an agreement that provid- topics as rights under the new con- ed significant concessions to the tract, the role of union stewards, union but would expire on Sep- and grievance procedures.33 tember 1, 1937, the beginning of In the ensuing months, the the next lumbering season.31 timber workers conducted a num- For the first time in their history, ber of short strikes to enforce com-

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pliance with the contract and to unionize new camps. to work the drive. In response, timber-worker represen- At Little Fork Landing (Koochiching County), for tatives immediately tried to explain the situation, and instance, workers struck for a half day to force the com- at the Farmer-Labor county convention, farmers over- pany to pay union wages. In Cass Lake, sawmill workers whelmingly endorsed the union. International Lumber went on strike April 2 to secure union recognition. By capitulated, and that spring the ﬁrst-ever eight-hour- April 27 they were back at work with a closed shop, an shift log drive took place in northern Minnesota. eight-hour day, and a wage increase from 19 to 35 cents Workers received 60 cents an hour, with time-and-a-half an hour.34 for overtime.35 International Lumber Company’s preparations for Looming over the union that spring and summer a river log drive came to a standstill that April when it was the approaching contract expiration in September. refused to meet union wages and conditions. The com- Central to achieving a new agreement, the timber work- pany then attempted to recruit struggling area farmers ers believed, was a uniﬁed regional front. President

Minnesota’s newly unionized timber workers supported these strikers in Marenisco, Michigan, 1937

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Lequier challenged the workers at the state convention in March, “You know as well as I do that to the extent the Michigan, Wisconsin, and Canadian workers are organized . . . we win greater concessions for ourselves.”36 To this end, Minnesota workers began establishing union locals in Park Falls, Wisconsin, and Ironwood, Michigan, donating scarce financial and personnel resources to the organizing drives in those states. On May 11 jacks at one Michigan camp walked off the job, instigating a dramatic and frequently violent 16-week strike involving 4,000 workers. From the beginning, Minnesota activists including Joe Liss and Irene and Henry Paull were heavily involved. The strike in Min- nesota had been relatively peaceful, but in Michigan, unsympathetic citizens joined mobs, terrorized and beat strikers, raided strike offices, and left two men dead. Local officials were at best passive observers of the violence and at worst direct participants. The Michigan strike finally ended on September 3, with the union winning higher wages, the eight-hour day, and improved conditions from 77 small operators; large firms, however, would continue to run their camps and Marooned AFL wood worker looking to rescue by CIO mills as they pleased. A highly publicized conflict, it inspired timber workers across the country. Looking to industrial unionism the future, Michigan organizer Matt Savola declared, “We are now getting our house in order and just as no amount of terror could break our ranks, so now, noth- headquarters on the corner of Michigan Street and ing can stop our organization drive.”37 Sixth Avenue in Duluth, workers immediately marched to the hotel and escorted Leaf across state lines to Although the AFL had granted charters for timber Superior, Wisconsin, telling him to “keep on moving.”39 locals in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, it had While the AFL neglected and sometimes under- done little to aid the woods workers, who were only mined unskilled workers, the CIO was winning major grudgingly accepted by the United Brotherhood of victories in heavy industries, demonstrating that its Carpenters and Joiners. According to organizer organization of industrial unions offered a viable alter- Kuusisto, the carpenters were put off by the timber native to the AFL. On July 15, 1937, in Tacoma, Wash- workers’ militancy. The carpenters had invited timber ington, the national timber-workers movement voted to delegates to attend their convention on the West Coast cancel its affiliation with the AFL and join the CIO. in 1936 but had not allowed them to vote. To their Minnesota workers proved to be solidly behind the protests, the general secretary of the carpenters had move, voting 1,700 to 29 in favor of becoming Local 29 responded, “Do you want to stay with the United of the International Woodworkers of America.40 Brotherhood or do you not? We have done more for you than you have done for us. . . . Go on out of the Meanwhile, lumber companies had also been orga- Brotherhood, and we will give you the sweetest fight nizing. After being caught off guard by the January you ever had in your lives.”38 strike, industry leaders believed that a unified front During the January 1937 strike in Minnesota, the and a single negotiating body were necessary to sustain carpenters union had dispatched Andrew Leaf from their interests. And so on April 22, 1937, they formed Indianapolis to settle the strike without conferring the Minnesota Timber Producers Association (MTPA), with local leaders. In secret negotiations with lumber- a powerful group representing 85 percent of the state’s company officials at the Spalding Hotel in Duluth, Leaf lumber production.41 was apparently working out an agreement that would In August the association and the timber union have sent strikers back to work without union recogni- began negotiations for a new contract. For seven weeks, tion. When word of the deception spread to strike MTPA led Local 29 to believe that its workers would

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retain the provisions of the original contract with some sion, producers would have to take men sent by the increases. On October 16, however, lumber companies union and could not discharge them for incompetence “made a complete flip-flop,” according to Midwest or failure to do the work without a hearing before union Labor, refusing the negotiated contract and instead officials.”46 This and other articles made no mention of offering an agreement that ignored many gains won in the reasons for the workers’ demands: eliminating the the first strike. On October 16, 17, and 18, union rep- unfair employment fees and the collusion between resentatives traveled from camp to camp to take a hiring agencies and company foremen that kept the strike vote. The tally was nearly unanimous in favor, laborers trapped in a hired-and-laid-off cycle. and within a few days some 4,000 Minnesota woods Another timber-producers strategy was to weaken workers again walked off the job.42 Governor Benson’s support for the strikers by turning Piece workers, about four-fifths of woods laborers, relief into a political controversy. The state was again were at the center of the conflict. The union demanded providing food and shelter for striking jacks and had a ten-day guarantee, meaning that at the end of ten opened CCC camps to rural strikers. In response, the days’ work, they could choose to be paid 42 ½ cents Two Harbors Chronicle scathingly reported in early an hour instead of the piece rate. For regular workers, November that “food cards are being given out in the union sought a minimum wage of $83.20 for a Duluth and $8.50 tickets for two weeks’ fare are bring- 26-day month and an eight-hour day. Also included in ing $6 cash on the bowery for those who prefer their their demands were a closed shop and union hiring corn in liquid form. Jacks who kick on the fare where halls to replace the employer-controlled employment their three kinds of meat and cake are on the table in agencies. The contract offered by timber producers camp are panhandling on the bowery in Duluth for a would have given piece workers no guaranteed mini- dime with which to buy a bowl of soup.”47 mum wage, converted additional job classifications to When mainstream newspapers published full state- piece work, and eliminated the eight-hour day for ments from lumber-company officials but refused to some types of work.43 print letters from union officers, the strikers took their Lumber companies were far better prepared for cause directly to the people. They organized public the October strike than for the one in January. meetings in many towns, met with farmers’ groups and Through a sophisticated public-relations campaign, other unions, distributed handbills and copies of they attempted to convince the public that they were Midwest Labor, and even obtained time on a Duluth proposing a reasonable contract. Fred W. Bessette, radio station to explain their cause. Solidarity among secretary of the MTPA and a former state legislator the strikers was so strong, claimed the union paper, from St. Louis County, told the Duluth News Tribune that that there was “very little for the picket cars to do timber workers were being offered “a general increase except to make occasional tours of the camps.” Timber of 33 per cent over wages a year ago.” What he failed to workers in Michigan and Wisconsin stood solidly mention was that this increase did not apply to most behind the strike, lending as much assistance as they workers, who were paid on a piece rate. “Such an could, as the Minnesota jacks had done during the arrangement would make it possible for an employer to Michigan strike. Iron-ore miners in Minnesota, who exploit hundreds of men to clear poor strips of timber credited the jacks’ success with inspiring their own at little cost to himself,” reported the union’s Midwest organizing drive, showed great interest. Duluth’s CIO Labor on October 22.44 Industrial Council voted unanimously to support the In addition, the 33-percent proposed increase for strike and appeared before the Duluth City Council regular workers failed to meet the 40-cents-an-hour with a representative of the AFL truck-drivers union to minimum demanded by the union. Ilmar Koivunen, back the timber workers and to demand that the city the new union’s business agent, responded, “We had not interfere with pickets.48 such slavery conditions to come up from that percent- Using a divide-and-conquer strategy, the MTPA ages of increases are meaningless. The fact is that the attempted to convince struggling area farmers that the timber barons, who have made millions upon millions union threatened their livelihood. MTPA secretary of dollars by robbing Minnesota of its forests, are forc- Bessette urged people to think carefully about this ing us into a strike because they refuse to pay a wage of dependence: 40 to 42 ½ cents an hour.”45 The timber producers also insisted that the demand Everyone in northern Minnesota has an interest in for a union hiring hall was unreasonable. The sympa- the timber business because it provides an annual thetic Two Harbors Chronicle noted, “Under this provi- payroll of nearly $7,000,000 and contributes to the

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Lumber. Earlier in the year he had written to Governor Benson, “I have carried on logging operations for a period of over twenty years and during that time have employed annually from forty or fifty to two hundred and fifty men.”50 As head of the new association, Ronkainen insisted that the timber union threatened the income of small farmers by preventing them from working the woods or selling their own timber to logging companies. Although farmers were permitted to join the timber union, Ronkainen tried to convince them otherwise. Pointing to the spring 1937 log drive in which the union had prevented the use of scab labor, often by farmers, at nonunion wages, he insisted that “this bunch of floaters and Communists refused to let the local tax-paying farmer get one single job from the company.” Ronkainen’s primary aim, it seems, was to force an open shop in the north woods, if not eliminate the union altogether. In one of several radio addresses he stated, “The biggest point of difference today between the Union and the operators is that the Union demands a closed shop, while the operators demand the right to hire farmers as well as members of the Union.” In a handbill addressed to the farmers of northern Minnesota, he urged “all farmers, who sell timber products or work in the woods, to join the Asso- ciation and to fight the racketeers who would keep us from making a living.”51 Although Ronkainen claimed to support labor unions in general, he insisted that the timber union promoted strikes “because it gives them an opportunity

Woodworkers Local 29 business agent Ilmar Koivunen Koivunen’s November 5 telegram alerting Governor (at right) with unidentiﬁed logger Benson to strike-breaking action

prosperity of every home and community in the tim- bered section of the state. . . . The lumbering industry not only furnishes employment to thousands of men, but it also furnishes a market for hay, grain, vegetables and other farm products.49

Leading the timber industry’s antiunion efforts among farmers was Frank T. Ronkainen, who the pre- vious summer had formed an organization variously called the Farmers Protective (or Producers) Asso- ciation or the Farmer (Timber) Producers Association. Although Ronkainen presented himself as a humble farmer, he was a logging contractor for International

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to shake down both the employer and the working at the Farmers Hall, Nov. 14, 1937, have discussed man.” In a November radio address, he commented on the timber workers strike and feel that their demands the union’s leadership: “First of all comes Sam Davis are just and we are ready to help them out in every [editor of Midwest Labor]. He is the brains of the orga- possible way. We are confident that you as our gover- nization. Mr. Davis is a Jewish Communist . . . Other nor also will do everything possible to make the officers of the Union are Indians, none of whom, so far strike a successful one to the timber workers.55 as I can learn, have any business experience and cer- tainly cannot claim to be farmers.”52 Following a series of radio addresses by Ronkainen, Disgusted with Ronkainen’s hostility, one timber farmers in a number of towns held protest meetings, worker responded in the union paper: and one group from Brevator in St. Louis County wrote to Benson, “We believe that there is a common Bond of He calls us a bunch of floaters. People who don’t interest between the workers & farmers and we hereby own property and pay taxes. Funny, isn’t it? First you pledge our support & unity to the timberworkers and rob a man and then you swear at him because he against Ronkainen or any other operator poseing and hasn’t any money . . . Wonder if the Republican Party assuming to speak for us farmers.”56 behind Ronkainen thinks we like to live like that . . . In early November, after a meeting of more than following the woods from camp to camp . . . wher- 300 farmers in Cloquet in which nearly unanimous sup- ever there’s work . . . sleeping in filthy bunks lousy port for the timber workers was declared, farmers’ rep- with bedbugs . . . a rotten, stinking kind of living . . . resentatives met with the strike committee to coordi- going to town with nothing to do but get crazy drunk nate efforts. One issue of concern to farmers was the . . . and back to the woods . . . Never make enough pulpwood they cut from their own land. By placing money to marry and settle down and raise a family. picket lines on highways throughout northern Minne- Men weren’t meant to live like that . . . it ain’t living.53 sota, the strikers were preventing farmers, as well as timber companies, from shipping wood to processing The efforts by Ronkainen and the timber producers facilities. At a second meeting on November 15, farm- were aimed not only at defeating the union but at ers’ representatives and the strike committee agreed dividing the Farmer-Labor Party and weakening sup- that the union would issue hauling permits to farmers port for Benson. According to Midwest Labor on but stop all other lumber shipments until a contract November 25, the MTPA sought to “deliver the final had been settled upon.57 thrust of death to the heart of the Farmer-Labor Party.” By early November, Midwest Labor reported, pickets Much of the industry’s attack on the governor centered had brought lumber hauling to a standstill in Duluth, on providing relief for strikers, which, Ronkainen Virginia, Hibbing, and International Falls. On Novem- wrote Benson, encouraged workers to live in “idleness ber 17, however, a tense situation began unfolding 19 at the expense of the state.” Never shy of gross misrep- miles west of Duluth on Highway 61 between Scanlon resentation, Ronkainen commented, “We may well and Cloquet. A caravan of 17 trucks loaded with lum- hang our heads in shame at the disgraceful spectacle ber spent the day in a standoff with a picket line set up of mob rule and rioting by men fed and housed by the to block shipments to mills in Cloquet. The trucks state at the order of Elmer A. Benson.”54 finally retreated when state patrolmen refused to escort Most farmers, however, refused to believe the claims them through the line.58 of the Farmers Protective Association. Those who Two days later 19 timber trucks again met the picket worked the woods off-season or who logged timber on line, this time blockading the entire highway, the main their own land were themselves grossly underpaid by paved road connecting Duluth with Cloquet and the same companies the union was fighting. Indeed, Minneapolis–St. Paul. Hundreds of motorists, many on the timber producers’ attempt to divide farmers and their way north for the opening of hunting season, the union seems only to have ignited the ire of farmers were stranded in Scanlon or forced to take long groups, ethnic associations, and other residents of detours on gravel roads. The truck drivers, led by northern Minnesota. They sent dozens of letters and Ernest Anderson of the Farmers Protective Association, telegrams to Benson declaring their solidarity with the claimed to be farmers selling pulpwood. Fred Natus, timber workers and their willingness to join the picket chairman of the Cloquet-area strike committee, how- lines. One letter with 82 signatures read: ever, said that “most . . . are not independent farmers. We, farmers from Kettle River, Cromwell, Wright, They are year-around timber jobbers, who do a little Lawler, Mahtowa, East Lake gathered into a meeting farming as a sideline. . . . Any farmer who makes his

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livelihood by farming, with an occasional sale of pulpwood for extra money, will be allowed through this picket line.” To gen- erate negative publicity for Ben- son and to force the highway patrol to break through the line, the timber haulers continued to challenge the pickets for the next six hours. At 9 p.m., with tensions escalating, union officer Koivunen arranged for the trucks to pass in order to avoid violence.59 The stand-off, however, resumed the next day. Amid demands for a declaration of mar- tial law by Carlton County officials, Benson visited the area that after- noon and assured workers that the highway patrol would not break their picket line. The governor Blocked highway and logging trucks near Duluth, November 19, 1937 was headed to Duluth to join strike negotiations, already underway for two weeks because of pressure from a U.S. Indeed, Minnesota’s timber workers had accomplished Department of Labor mediator and two officials of the what few thought possible: they had organized a poor, state’s industrial commission. Attorney Henry Paull unskilled, and widely scattered work force in an indus- represented the union, while attorney Thomas S. try that for decades had dominated its workers. Essen- McCabe negotiated for the timber producers. While tial to their success was their strong commitment to pickets stood their ground in Scanlon and huddled collective action, their efforts to communicate their around bonfires for warmth, negotiations continued issues to the people of northern Minnesota, Governor through the night. At dawn on November 21, word Benson’s unwavering support for the strikers, and the reached the strikers that an agreement had been outpouring of public sympathy they received. reached.60 Although the timber workers had improved their The final contract, a decided victory for the union, circumstances, there was little they could do in the face was ratified in the next few days by votes taken at strike of decades of short-sighted resource extraction. “Cut headquarters throughout northern Minnesota. Most and get out” had been the policy that had guided log- importantly, the union had won the ten-day guarantee ging in the north woods for half a century. Natural for piece workers, as well as an 18 percent increase in regeneration of the forest was marginal at best. The piece rates. Regular workers settled for a raise from $70 great white pine forest did not return, and large areas to $75 a month, rather than the $83.20 they had origi- of northern Minnesota remained entirely barren for nally proposed. The eight-hour day and 48-hour work years. Timber companies had already shifted most week were retained, and, although the union hiring operations to new stands in the Pacific Northwest and hall was defeated, workers would no longer have to pay Southeast. their own employment fees. The agreement, scheduled While Local 29 endured, many timber workers lost to remain in effect until September 1, 1938, when the their jobs in the years after 1937. Small logging crews next cutting season would begin, also provided for a continued to harvest Minnesota’s remaining forest for closed shop and forbade discrimination against strike pulpwood to make paper, railroad ties, and other wood participants.61 products, but the era of big lumber had come to a close. Some workers followed the timber west in search “These men were the most exploited of all workers, of work, bringing with them the lessons and experience but today they are the most militant and progressive,” of organizing a union. Others, especially elderly jacks, declared Midwest Labor shortly after the strike ended.62 spent their last days in state-run shelters and transient

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camps or eked out an exis- tence in dying lumber towns surrounded by what Governor Benson called “the graveyards of once magniﬁcent forests.”63 For those who continued working in the north woods, however, the struggles of 1937 made a difference. For the ﬁrst time in their history, Minnesota’s timber workers boasted a strong bargaining structure with a degree of control over their living and working conditions, better wages, and a voice for their grievances. It had been a Man (at right) and mountain of pulpwood for making paper, International Falls, 1913 long time coming. ❑

NOTES

The author thanks Peter Rachleff for commenting on a draft of this of Change, ed. Clifford Clark (St. Paul: MHS Press, 1989), article. 227–28. 1. Minneapolis Labor Review, Jan. 15, 1937, p. 8. 8. Koivunen interview, 15, 36; Beck, “Radicals in the 2. Duluth Timber Worker, May 14, 1937, p. 3, microfilm, Northwoods,” 60. Minnesota Historical Society (MHS), St. Paul. For other strike 9. “1928 Report,” Frank H. Gillmor Papers, MHS; Martin accounts, see Bill Beck, “Radicals in the Northwoods: The 1937 Kuusisto, interview by Irene Paull, Oct. 1968, transcript, 5, Timber Workers Strike,” Journal of the West 35 (Apr. 1996): MHS; Charlotte Todes, Labor and Lumber (New York: Inter- 55–63, and Debra Bernhardt, “Ballad of a Lumber Strike,” national Publishers, 1931), 113. Michigan History 66 (Jan./Feb. 1982): 38–43. 10. Kuusisto interview, 5; Archie Peters and William Torri 3. National Resources Committee, “Final Report: The testimony, meeting of state relief officials and strike representa- Northern Lake States Region,” June 1939, p. 1. tives, Duluth, Jan. 21, 1937, p. 4, 23, in Executive Letters, 1937, 4. Agnes Larson, History of the White Pine Industry in Min- Governors Records, Minnesota State Archives. nesota (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949), 11. John E. Haynes, “Revolt of the ‘Timber Beasts’: IWW 265–88; see also accident and fatality statistics, Biennial Reports, Lumber Strike in Minnesota,” Minnesota History 42 (Spring Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, Minnesota State 1971): 162–74; Kuusisto interview, 2; Fred Lequier, testimony, Archives, MHS. meeting of state relief officials and strike representatives, 2, in 5. Larson, White Pine Industry, 367; George B. Engberg, Executive Letters, 1937, Governors Records. “Labor in the Lake States Lumber Industry, 1830–1930” (Ph.D. 12. Koivunen interview, 14, 17; Kuusisto interview, 11. diss., University of Minnesota, 1949), 23; Ilmar Koivunen, inter- 13. Peter Rachleff, “Labor: Three Key Conflicts,” in Century view by Irene Paull, Coos Bay, Ore., Aug. 1968, transcript, 9, of Change, 206; Kuusisto interview, 3. MHS; American Forestry Association, Minnesota Lands: Own- 14. Kuusisto interview, 10; Lequier, testimony; Duluth News ership, Use and Management of Forest and Related Lands (Washing- Tribune, Jan. 6, 1937, p. 1. ton, D.C.: Livingston Publishing Co., 1960), 22. 15. Koivunen interview, 16; Duluth News Tribune, Jan. 6, 6. Tri-State Forestry Conference, “Problems, Plans, and 1937, p. 1, Jan. 12, 1937, p. 1; Timber Workers Union Local Programs of Using Forest Lands in the Lake States,” final 2776, Convention Bulletin, Mar. 26, 1937, p. 1, on Timber Worker report, St. Paul, May 20–21, 1938, p. 81, MHS; Committee on microfilm, MHS. Land Utilization, Land Utilization in Minnesota: A State Program 16. Duluth News Tribune, Jan. 6, 1937, p. 1; Timber Worker, for the Cut–Over Lands (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota July 23, 1937, p. 1; Timber Workers, Convention Bulletin, 2. Press, 1934), 119. 17. L. P. Zimmerman, State Relief Agency Administrator, to 7. Kirk Jeffrey, “The Major Manufacturers: From Food and Elmer Benson, Feb. 2, 1937, p. 11, Exec. Letters; Duluth News Forest Products to High Technology,” in Minnesota in a Century Tribune, Jan. 9, 1937, p. 1.

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18. Duluth News Tribune, Jan. 9, p. 1, Jan. 12, p. 1, Jan. 13, Villages and Voices, 1996), 80; Timber Worker, July 23, 1937, p. 3—all 1937. p. 1; Kuusisto interview, 10. 19. Virginia Daily Enterprise, Jan. 16, 1937, p. 1, Jan. 22, 1937, 40. Galenson, CIO Challenge, 385; Timber Worker, July 23, p. 4. 1937, p. 1. 20. Koivunen interview, 42. 41. Bill Beck, “Fifty Years of MTPA History,” Timber Bulletin, 21. Lequier to Benson, Jan. 6, 1937, Benson to Lequier, Aug.–Sept. 1987, p. 18; Midwest Labor, Sept. 10, 1937, p. 1. Jan. 11, 1937, Exec. Letters. 42. Midwest Labor, Sept. 9–Oct. 15, 1937, Oct. 22, 1937, p. 1. 22. Jerry Lembcke and William M. Tattam, One Union in 43. “Statement of the Executive Board of Local 29,” Oct. Wood: A Political History of the International Woods Workers of 1937, p. 1–3, Exec. Letters. America (New York: International Publishers, 1984), 47, 48; 44. Duluth News Tribune, Oct. 21, 1937, p. 1–2; Midwest Zimmerman to Benson, Feb. 2, 1937, p. 1, Exec. Letters. Labor, Oct. 22, 1937, p. 1. 23. Timber Workers, Convention Bulletin, 2; testimony, gov- 45. Midwest Labor, Oct. 22, 1937, p. 2. ernor’s committee investigating camp conditions, reprinted in 46. Two Harbors Chronicle, Oct. 28, 1937, p. 1. Timber Worker, May 14, 1937, p. 3. 47. Two Harbors Chronicle, Nov. 4, 1937, p. 1, Oct. 28, 1937, 24. Koivunen interview, 25. p. 1. 25. Irene Paull to Benson, Feb. 5, 1937, Exec. Letters. 48. Midwest Labor, Oct. 22, 1937, p. 2, Oct. 29, 1937, p. 1, 2. 26. “Timber Strike” folder, Exec. Letters; St. Louis County 49. Timber Producers Association, “Bulletin No. 6,” Nov. 1, Independent (Hibbing), Jan. 15, 1937, p. 1. 1937, p. 3, MHS. 27. “Northern Minnesota: A Land of Opportunities for 50. Frank T. Ronkainen to Benson, Jan. 14, 1937, p. 1, Men of Moderate Means” (St. Paul: Great Northern Railway, Exec. Letters. 1911), MHS; Hazel H. Reinhardt, “Social Adjustments to a 51. Ronkainen, Two Harbors Chronicle, Nov. 18, 1937, p. 6; Changing Environment,” in The Great Lakes Forest: An Environ- “Farmers of Northern Minnesota,” signed Frank T. Ronkainen, mental and Social History, ed. Susan Flader (Minneapolis: Uni- undated handbill, Exec. Letters. versity of Minnesota Press, 1983), 209. 52. Two Harbors Chronicle, Nov. 18, 1937, p. 6. 28. The 14 counties are Aitkin, Beltrami, Carlton, Cass, 53. Ronkainen to Benson, Apr. 18, 1937, p. 1–2, Exec. Clearwater, Cook, Crow Wing, Hubbard, Itasca, Koochiching, Letters; Ronkainen, Two Harbors Chronicle, Nov. 18, 1937, p. 6; Lake, Lake of the Woods, Pine, and St. Louis; H. C. Moser, Idle Timber Worker, May 14, 1937, p. 4. Lands, Idle Men (St. Paul: Forestry Committee of the Minnesota 54. Midwest Labor, Nov. 25, 1937, p. 4; Ronkainen to State Planning Board, 1938), 10; Oscar Jesness and Reynolds Benson, Jan. 14, 1937, p. 2, Exec. Letters; Ronkainen, Two Nowell, A Program for Land Use in Northern Minnesota (Minnea- Harbors Chronicle, Nov. 18, 1937, p. 6. polis: University of Minnesota Press, 1935), 104. 55. Midwest Labor, Nov. 5, 1937, p. 2; October Timber Strike 29. Committee on Land Utilization, Land Utilization, 17; folder and letter to Benson, Nov. 13, 1937, Exec. Letters. Jesness and Nowell, Program, 116, 205; Moser, Idle Lands, 8; 56. St. Louis County Independent, Nov. 19, 1937, p. 1; Timber Workers, Convention Bulletin, 2. undated letter to Benson, Exec. Letters. 30. Virginia Daily Enterprise, Jan. 21, 1937, p. 1; Duluth News 57. Midwest Labor, Nov. 5, 1937, p. 2, Nov. 19, 1937, p. 1. Tribune, Jan. 23, 1937, p. 1. 58. Midwest Labor, Nov. 5, 1937, p. 2; Duluth News Tribune, 31. Duluth News Tribune, Jan. 26, 1937, p. 9, Jan. 27, 1937, Nov. 18, 1937, p. 1. p. 9. 59. Duluth News Tribune, Nov. 20, 1937, p. 1, 3; Koivunen 32. Duluth News Tribune, Jan. 30, 1937, p. 1; “Agreement interview, 27; Duluth Herald, Nov. 20, 1937, p. 1. between Employers and the Timber Workers Union Local 60. Duluth News Tribune, Nov. 21, 1937, p. 1, Nov. 22, 1937, 2776,” Jan. 1937, in Exec. Letters; Virginia Daily Enterprise, Jan. p. 1. 29, 1937, p. 1. 61. Midwest Labor, Nov. 25, 1937, p. 1, Dec. 3, 1937, p. 2; 33. Timber Workers, Convention Bulletin, 2; Timber Worker, Duluth News Tribune, Nov. 22, 1937, p. 2. Apr. 2, 1937, p. 4. 62. Midwest Labor, Nov. 25, 1937, p. 2. 34. Timber Worker, Apr. 2, p. 4, Apr. 9, p. 1, Apr. 30, p. 1—all 63. Elmer A. Benson, “Conservation and the Lumberjack,” 1937. American Forests, Aug. 1937, p. 382. 35. Timber Worker, Apr. 23, 1937, p. 1. 36. Timber Workers, Convention Bulletin, 3. 37. Kuusisto interview, 11–12; Lembcke and Tattam, One The images on p. 268 and 271 are from The Timber Worker, June Union, 48; Midwest Labor, Sept. 3, 1937, p. 1; St. Louis County 4 and June 25, 1937, p. 1, respectively; on p. 269, from Minneapolis Independent, July 16, 1937, p. 5. Labor Review, Jan. 1, 1937, p. 1; on p. 266, from R. N. Cunning- 38. Kuusisto interview, 12; Walter Galenson, The CIO ham, Forests of Minnesota, 1940 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement, Agriculture, 1940), p. 94; on p. 275, courtesy Minnesota Timber 1935–1941 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), Producers Association, Duluth. All the other images, including the 384–85. telegram, which is in Executive Letters, 1937, Governors Records, 39. St. Louis County Independent, Jan. 29, 1937, p. 1; Irene Minnesota State Archives, are from the MHS library. Map drawn by Paull, The Selected Writings of Irene Paull (Minneapolis: Midwest Lois Stanfield.

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